The Resurrection of Harold Finch
by Pickwick12
Summary: As a boy, Harold Finch met a madman with a box, and his life changed forever. As an adult, he met him once again, with equally massive consequences.
1. The Binder

"Hello, old friend." Harold nervously wiped his glasses on the edge of his shirt. It was all he could think of to say to the young man in front of him.

"Hello, Harold." The young man's voice was quiet, hypnotic, nothing like it had been in the past. He caught Harold's eye and held it, and the shorter man realized that _young _was entirely the wrong word. He had the oldest eyes Harold had ever seen.

"Would you like to sit down?"

"Of course." With an oddly graceful turn, the other man slipped behind Harold's desk and took a seat in his chair. Harold perched awkwardly on one of the two chairs opposite him.

"What shall I call you?" Harold rubbed his nose.

"I'm still the Doctor." The tone of voice held the lightest note of reproach, and it filled Harold's mind with visions of a summer from his childhood, a summer filled with a magical blue box and an even more magical man with dark hair and a bowlcut, a man who had turned his world upside-down.

"Why are you here?" Harold had long-ago learned that there was no point in being indirect with the Doctor. Much better to get to the crux of things.

"I'm here because I'm going to die." The smile that accompanied the words was like the last ray of sun at nightfall.

"You said you couldn't—die." The words belonged to the boy Harold had been, not the man he'd become.

The Doctor smiled again, a smile that filled up his eyes and nearly pulled a smile from Harold's solemn countenance. "Those were the words of a proud man to win the trust of a boy. And yet, not a lie. I'm hard to kill, but it's not impossible."

"What do you want with me?" Harold felt his right hand clutch his left, and he wondered when he'd turned into someone who always counted the cost.

"Oh, Harold," said the Doctor, giving him a sad, penetrating look. "I haven't come to take anything from you. I've come to give you something." Harold watched as he stood up and went over to the blue box, which was standing quietly in the corner of his office. The Doctor had once told him it was alive; he wondered now if that were true. "Come along!" The voice jolted him. As obediently as he had when he was twelve, Harold followed the Doctor inside the box's tall wooden doors.

Harold's breath left him. It was as large as he'd remembered!—larger, perhaps. Now, though, it was no longer empty and silver and cold. Instead, it was alive with red and yellow, glass, and aged metal. It was the home of a Doctor who had seen and done much more than the one who had met his child self, filled with buttons and artifacts and joy. Harold felt tears begin to form in his blue eyes.

After a moment, he felt a gentle hand touch his shoulder. "Here it is. I flew through two star systems to bring it to you." The Doctor handed him an ordinary-looking three-ring binder.

Harold blinked. He'd expected something a bit more, well, _unearthly_, perhaps a piece of moon rock or a component of alien technology.

The Doctor laughed and smoothed the bowtie that seemed oddly appropriate and oddly out-of-place on his ridiculously youthful body. "The government's given you a job, haven't they?"

Harold nodded. It was no use asking how the Doctor knew things. He just did.

"This will help you finish it up." The Doctor patted his shoulder again, and Harold followed him back into the dim light of the office, wishing he could stay in the blue box forever.

"It's about time for me to go." The Doctor smiled again. "I've loads to do before I say farewell to this planet." His tone was playful now, and he nearly danced.

"One thing—," Harold's voice was hesitant.

"Yes?" The Doctor stopped mid-strut.

"Why are you doing this for me, Doctor?" Harold stared at his hands.

The Doctor looked at him, and Harold felt as if every secret he'd ever had was lingering in the room between them. "You were a lovely boy, Harold, and you always wanted to be a knight." The Doctor disappeared into the box, and Harold watched it dematerialize, feeling as if he, too, had become insubstantial.


	2. The Memory

Harold didn't open the binder until the next morning. After his encounter with the Doctor, he'd gone straight home and taken two sleeping pills with a glass of seltzer water. He knew he'd have to remember, but he wasn't ready, not just yet.

The morning light was offensively cheerful as Harold fought his way out of his sleeping-pill-induced stupor. He opened his closet and pulled out a plain white shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, unconsciously replicating the uniform of his boyhood. He put on his glasses and combed his hair, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He looked the same as always, but he felt different. No amount of rationalization could make him forget the Doctor or the blue box, not any more. Before he could stop himself, he smiled.

"I'm taking a personal day, Nathan." He tried to keep his voice from being uncharacteristically buoyant on the phone, but he couldn't help it.

"Are you all right, Harold?" His partner was well justified in asking; Harold hadn't missed a day of work in three years."

"I'm—I'm fine." It was totally true.

Harold took out his leather satchel and filled it with the Doctor's binder, a thermos of coffee, and a bag with a peanut butter sandwich. And a flashlight. He wouldn't need a flashlight, of course, but something in him wanted to bring one just the same.

He stepped outside into the New York morning and found that his feet carried him to the small park at the end of the street. It wasn't much of a park, really, with its single tree, ancient swingset, and lone wooden bench, but it was a slice of nature in the middle of the city.

Harold sat down, determined to work, but he was immediately distracted by the excited squeals of a little girl on the swings and the dance of a tiny butterfly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd really looked at things.

_What are you doing, Finch? _he asked himself, but instead of a stern, adult reply, he heard the voice of a child in his head. _I'm observing, because the details are the most important. _Chastened, Harold sat quietly and let the music of bird songs and car horns and human voices wash over him.

After a long while, he opened the binder. Of course. As he'd known it would, it contained everything he needed to finish the Machine, all the things he and Nathan had tried to figure out and missed, all the components that had never existed before. All that remained was for him to build it.

But why? Why would the Doctor use his last days to deliver such a thing? Harold remembered him as a protector, a healer, a guide, but he had been no friend of tyranny or the loss of personal freedom.

No, if the Doctor had entrusted such a thing to him, then the reason must be something more. Harold couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what it was. But he didn't mind. He was beginning to realize that uncertainty wasn't as dreadful as he'd made it out to be.

Harold went home in the late afternoon, feeling curiously light. He lay on the large sofa in his living room and let his eyes close, finally allowing the memories to wash over him. He saw a shy boy with spectacles who loved to fight the trees in his backyard with a wooden sword, and his heart ached for the dreams that boy had dreamed. He saw the Doctor, older and younger at the same time, a beautiful, dark-haired girl, and a wild Scotsman. He felt the boy's fear and joy as he was swept away into an adventure that no one in the world would ever believe. Finally, as the dawn of memory turned to dusk, he felt the boy's mingled grief and pride as the timelord said goodbye. He'd grown taller, that summer, in heart if not in stature.

When Harold sat up, he and the boy were one and the same. The Doctor might be preparing to die, but Harold Finch had come back to life.


	3. The Knights

"We have a new number, Mr. Reese."

"I'll be right over, Finch."

Harold ended the call and stared at his phone for a moment, breathing thanks to the Doctor. The Doctor was long dead now, Harold supposed, but he still performed the ritual each time.

Perhaps, if anyone else had known, they wouldn't understand why Harold was grateful, why the Machine was a gift. Perhaps they would think the Doctor had given Harold a curse instead.

Well, they didn't know Harold Finch. They hadn't seen the fiery eyes of the boy who wanted nothing more than to slay monsters and save the weak. And they didn't know the Doctor, the man who would fly across space to fulfill a child's wish because he believed it was as important as the universe. No one knew that in Harold's deepest soul, he'd always wanted to be a knight. And that, for all the world, was what the Doctor had given him.

Thanks was not nearly enough.

* * *

><p>"Mr. Reese, are you all right?" Harold's voice was taut, afraid. He didn't want to hear the silence that would indicate the death of his one remaining friend in the world.<p>

"Yes, Finch, I'm fine." Mr. Reese's soft, ironic tone sent a wave of relief through Harold.

"I was afraid you might not have made it out."

"I wouldn't have, but I got some unexpected—help."

"Help?"

"Some man in a tweed coat came out of nowhere and scared the last two so badly they ran away. He said to say hello. He's your doctor, or something."

"My Doctor." Harold nearly laughed out loud. Not dead, then.

He hoped the Doctor was proud.


End file.
